The popularity of business intelligence (BI) reporting has been on the rise – and for good reason. The graphs, charts, and number-crunching power that BI tools provide help you get the upper hand on all that data stored in your ERP system so you can make “intelligent” business decisions.

Many of you have already made, or are planning to make, a transition from the older Financial Reporter (FR) over to the new Sage Intelligence Reporting in Sage 300 ERP (Accpac). So here’s a look at some of the frequently-asked questions about Sage Intelligence.

What Is Sage Intelligence Reporting?

It’s an Excel-based reporting tool that pulls data from across your entire Sage 300 ERP system (any module) into a single location so you can slice, dice, and analyze the numbers in familiar spreadsheet environment.

When it comes to financial reporting, Sage Intelligence is comparable to Financial Reporter (FR) in functionality. But as the name suggests, FR is designed primarily for financial reporting on numbers in your GL.

Sage Intelligence, however, looks across your entire system so you can run Excel-based graphical reports on sales, inventory, customers, non-financial data, and so much more.

Do I Need to Build All New Reports?

No – Sage 300 Intelligence Reporting comes with a number of ready-to-use reports for finance, inventory, products, customers, sales, and more.

You can use the standard reports ‘as is’ to get up and running quickly for immediate insight into your business. Or customize these pre-built templates to your liking.

While FR report specifications are not natively compatible with Sage Intelligence, a guide is available that walks you through the process of converting FR specs into Sage Intelligence Financial Report layouts.

No – Sage Intelligence only works with Excel 2007 or higher because it uses embedded XML files, the Excel ribbon, and other functionality that’s not supported in version 2003.

Where Can I Learn More?

If you want to do some digging around and get to know Sage Intelligence a little better, head over to the Sage 300 Intelligence Online Community where you’ll find instructional videos, recorded webcasts, user guides, a discussion forum, and a wealth of helpful resources to set you in the right direction.